It bears repeating, often:
Terry McAuliffe in 2004:
"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.
"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."
He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.
"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.
"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."
We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.
[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]
My thoughts and qustions after the jump...
So what's changed? What epiphany did Terry McAuliffe have that showed him the error of his ways in the past 4 months?
It couldn't be just the fortunes of Hillary Clinton. No, I'd never believe Terry McAuliffe, beloved former DNC chair, would suddenly turn his back on honesty and integrity of the nomination process for something so crass as self-interest?
Seriously, why has no one raised this in just one of his dozen of appearances on CNN? Does Wolf Blitzer have anyone on staff with access to a computer?
On Sept. 1, 2007, the Clinton campaign committed to the DNC-approved calendar and its sanctions. Now they want Michigan and Florida to count. And they say this with straight faces and nary a hint of shame. I guess they're better politicians than I ever imagined.